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I have applied for over 1000+ jobs in the last year. I just graduated and took the bar. I have been rejected for jobs because of my gender and my race. I have no helping hand, and I do not know what to do. Seriously, I feel like all of this is just bullshit. EVERY JOB IS LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WITH EXPERIENCE, HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSE TO GET EXPERIENCE IF I AM NOT GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY!!!

Unfortunately, entry level hiring in the legal profession is quite limited once you get outside the biglaw/bigfed world. It will help substantially once you are admitted to the bar.

As far as getting experience, if nobody will hire you it may still be possible to take public defender cases. Different jurisdictions handle it differently, but I know in Louisiana (for example) they are looking for anybody with a pulse and a bar card to take indigent criminal defense cases.

Hang in there, I know some people to took over a year to find paid legal employment post-graduation but ended up on their feet in a job they enjoy.

Anonymous User wrote:I have applied for over 1000+ jobs in the last year. I just graduated and took the bar. I have been rejected for jobs because of my gender and my race. I have no helping hand, and I do not know what to do. Seriously, I feel like all of this is just bullshit. EVERY JOB IS LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WITH EXPERIENCE, HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSE TO GET EXPERIENCE IF I AM NOT GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY!!!

Sadly that is the irony. Every job requires a few years of experience, the question is how to get that experience. All I can say is hang in there, giving up wouldn't help.

Go west and go rural, I can give specific employers hiring right now if you have a bar card if you’re interested.

andythefir wrote:Go west and go rural, I can give specific employers hiring right now if you have a bar card if you’re interested.

I have a few questions about NM DA's office hiring. I would be considered an extremely odd candidate and was hoping to pick your brain. If you could pm me I'd appreciate it

andythefir wrote:Go west and go rural, I can give specific employers hiring right now if you have a bar card if you’re interested.

Unfortunately I can’t PM you back because I just made an account. I am currently an attorney w the FBI. Got the position straight out of law school through the honors program. I do mostly national security cases/issues. However, my goal in law school was to be a prosecutor but as luck would have it I got this great job. I’m getting worried now though because I’m almost three years out of law school and I fear I’ll never see the inside of a courtroom. I’m considering applying to a federal clerkship in wdtx or nm, then going to a rural DA in nm for about two years to get some felony trials under my belt. Afterwards I’d look at cruces, Tucson or El Paso-like cities in the SW for ausa positions. Am I crazy to consider going the clerkship and rural DA route first rather than just applying from FBI to AUSA? I fear that the prestige of my current job may secure me an AUSA position, but I would be woefully unprepared as I have no trial experience. What are your thoughts?

I think going clerkship —> AUSA would be doable. I know people who’ve been hired in those SW districts without trial experience, and I started at a USAO through the honors program, so had no trial experience and had to learn on the job. Not gonna lie, there are times it’s been really hard and there are some colleagues who get snooty about dealing with people without experience. But there are tons of people who are supportive and helpful and get it. Also, the nature of those offices (very heavy volume, lots of the same kinds of cases, a reasonable amount of turnover) is such that they’re a decent place to learn - you will start on non-complex cases and while fucking up through being an idiot is bad, fucking up through inexperience isn’t going to be a real problem on a run of the mill illegal reentry or drugs at the port case. And people can distinguish between idiocy and inexperience.

All that said, IME the border districts like to hire local prosecutors, so you could aim for AUSA after a clerkship and if it doesn’t work out go the local route for the experience.

Finally, I would just ask whether you really want to uproot and move your entire life to one of these regions if you don’t have previous experience there, just for a shot at a job that is often overglamorized. I like the SW quite a lot but it’s pretty different from the rest of the country and not everyone likes it. Could you angle for the DC USAO? There’s a lot more trial experience there since it’s the equivalent of a local prosecutor. (That said you may not be in DC, so if not, ignore me.)

andythefir wrote:Go west and go rural, I can give specific employers hiring right now if you have a bar card if you’re interested.

I’m not sure if you were the anon above but I am hoping to still talk w you.

valleyrat wrote:

andythefir wrote:Go west and go rural, I can give specific employers hiring right now if you have a bar card if you’re interested.

I’m not sure if you were the anon above but I am hoping to still talk w you.

Re the anon above, you're overthinking it. If you have a security clearance, then you're already going to be competitive for Del Rio, Yuma, and so on. Clerkships (except for magistrate unless you're unemployed) are never a bad idea. You can also get insane trial experience in rural New Mexico, and those jobs are much easier to get.

This thread is a bit of a mess because it conflates getting a first job, which is the hardest job you'll ever get, with how to angle for a USAO, which is crazy hard to get. I can't give much more guidance than other folks here, since I can only speak as a state prosecutor. But if you need that first job, I know of places that are constantly desperate to hire. New Mexico's 5th does on campus recruiting at Cooley because they're the only ones willing to go there. A dude got hired there who got fired from his last DA job years ago and was working as a bouncer. There are jobs, and if you have a bar card, you can get them.

Actually, some of the teeny tiny USAO offices (like Yuma) require experience because the offices are too small to be able to train people. The big border offices have much more turnover and are better for newbies.